Yorkshire Three Peaks

Just when you thought you were safe…more holiday pictures! Finished off staying at a cottage in Sedbergh, Yorkshire Dales. I went for a walk up Whernside, the third of the Yorkshire Three Peaks and the area’s highest point. Started off from the Ribblehead Viaduct which carries the “Settle to Carlisle” Railway. A feat of Victorian engineering which however caused so many deaths amongst the “navvies” building it (accidents and smallpox) that the local churchyard had to be extended. The Rough Guide describe it as a “wonderfully bleak spot”

I walked up the other two peaks Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent (over 3 consecutive days – the record is 2 hours and 46mins by a fell runner for all 3!).

Thinking of organising a trade union team to come back and walk the peaks next year? In 2004 a group of us did the national 3 Peaks (Ben Nevis, Scarfell and Snowdon). It’s probably been long enough for us to forget that after a quite horrendous experience (it absolutely poured down with rain and we got utterly lost in Scarfell) most of us promised never to do anything like that again.

Picture - enjoying a refreshing pint of Yorkshire bitter after Whernside.